The present invention relates to a cooking apparatus which includes a cassette tape player system for audibly announcing an explanation concerning cooking.
Recently, a microwave oven has been developed which includes a microcomputer control system for controlling a cooking operation in a digital fashion. In such a system, a keyboard panel is provided for selecting a desired cooking mode, a preferred cooking period, a preferred microwave output level, etc. An example of a microwave oven including a programmable digital control circuit is described in copending application Ser. No. 792,222, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,639, "MICROWAVE OVEN WITH A PROGRAMMABLE DIGITAL CONTROL CIRCUIT," filed on Apr. 29, 1977 by Tsuneo Kawabata, Minoru Makita and Sigeaki Masuzawa and assigned to the same assignee as the present application.
However, the above-mentioned digital control microwave oven is not easy to handle, because the operator is required to actuate many switches before initiating the cooking operation. To facilitate the data introduction, a magnetic card controlled microwave oven has been developed, wherein a typical cooking program is recorded on a magnetic card and the actual cooking operation is conducted in accordance with the data recorded on the magnetic card. In such a system, the operator is required only to select the corresponding magnetic card and insert it into a reader system employed in the microwave oven. An example of the magnetic card controlled microwave oven is described in copending application Ser. No. 974,037, "MAGNETIC CARD CONTROL MICROWAVE OVEN," filed on Dec. 27, 1978 by Keiichiro Doi, Minoru Makita and Masaaki Kawada, and assigned to the same assignee as the present application.
Even in such a magnetic card controlled microwave oven, preparation of materials and cooking ware, and seasoning, stirring and turning-over during the cooking operation must be conducted by the operator. Such instructions or explanations are printed on a cooking advise book. Therefore, the operator must look into the cooking advise book to conduct the actual cooking operation.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a cooking apparatus including a cassette tape player system for audibly announcing the cooking explanation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a combination microwave and electric heater oven including a cassette tape player system for audibly announcing the cooking explanation and for digitally controlling the cooking operation.
Other objects and further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. It should be understood, however, that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
To achieve the above objects, pursuant to an embodiment of the present invention, a cassette tape player system and an audio system are included in a combination microwave and electric heater oven for audibly announcing the cooking explanation. A tape drive system is provided for intermittently driving a cassette tape for providing the audio announcement at a desired timing.
In a preferred form, the cassette tape player system is the two track type, and the cassette tape includes four tracks, two of them being for reverse operation. The audio announcement is recorded on the first and fourth tracks, and a digital data related to the cooking program is recorded on the second and third tracks. The combination microwave and electric heater oven includes a digital control circuit which responds to the digital data derived from the cassette tape player system, thereby controlling the operation of a microwave generation source or the electric heater. The audio information and the digital data recorded on the cassette tape are correlated with each other so that a suitable audible explanation is generated at a desired timing during a course of the cooking sequence.